From Wiesenbach to Heidelberg, one follows the course of the Necker, cased by hills which carry forests on a bank of sand and red sulphate. How many rivers I have seen flow! I met pilgrims from Walthüren: they formed two parallel lines on either side of the high-road; the carriages passed in the middle. The women walked bare-foot, beads in hand, with a parcel of linen on their heads; the men bare-headed, also carrying their beads in their hands. It was raining; in some places the watery clouds crept along the sides of the hills. Boats loaded with timber went down the river, others went up, under sail, or in tow. In the broken places in the hills were hamlets standing among the fields, in the midst of rich vegetable-gardens adorned with Bengal roses and different flowering shrubs. Pilgrims, pray for my poor little King: he is exiled, he is innocent; he is commencing his pilgrimage while you are performing yours and I ending mine. If he is not to reign, it will always be a certain glory to me to have fastened the wreck of so great a fortune to my life-boat God alone sends the fair wind and opens the harbour. [Sidenote: Heidelberg.] As one approaches Heidelberg, the bed of the Necker, strewn with rocks, widens. One sees the wharf of the town and the town itself, which wears a pleasant mien. The back-ground of the whole picture ends in a tall earthly horizon: it seems to bar the stream. A red-brick triumphal arch marks the entrance to Heidelberg. To the left, on a hill, stand the ruins of a medieval castle. Apart from their picturesque effect and some popular traditions, the remains of the Gothic period interest only the nations whose work they are. Does a Frenchman trouble his head about the lords Palatine, the princesses Palatine, plump, white and blue-eyed though they may have been? One forgets them for St. Geneviève of Brabant[25]. Those modern ruins have nothing in common with modern nations, excepting their outward aspect of Christianity and their feudal character. It is different, leaving out the sun, with the monuments of Greece and Italy; these belong to all nations: they commence their history; their inscriptions are written in languages known to all civilized men. The ruins even of renovated Italy possess a general interest, because they are stamped with the seal of the arts and the arts come within the public domain of society. A fresco by Domenichino[26] or Titian that becomes obliterated, a palace by Michael Angelo or Palladio[27] that crumbles throw the genius of all the centuries into mourning. At Heidelberg, they show a tun of inordinate proportions, a drunkards' Coliseum in ruins: at least no Christian has lost his life in that amphitheatre of the Vespasians of the Rhine; his reason, yes: that is no great loss.